Miles tamped down his personal urgency, trying to make his voice cool and logical. "But a public trial would bring out the whole clone story. In all its details. It would attract a lot of undesirable attention to me, from a Security viewpoint. Including, you may be sure, Cetagandan attention."
"It's too late to put a lid on this."
"I'm not so sure. Yes, rumors will float, but a few sufficiently confused rumors might actually be useful. Those two," Miles gestured to the captured guards, "are small fry. My clone knows more than they do, and he's already back at the embassy. Which is, legally, Barrayaran soil. What do we need them for? Now that we have you back, and have the clone, the plot is void. Put this group under surveillance like the rest of the Komarran expatriates here on Earth, and they're no further danger to us."
Galeni met his eyes, then looked away, pale profile tense with the unspoken corollary: and your career will be uncompromised by a splashy public scandal. And you wont have to confront your father. "I… don't know."
"I do," said Miles confidently. He gestured a waiting Dendarii over. "Sergeant. Take a couple of techs upstairs and suck out these people's comconsole files. Take a fast scan around for secret files. And while you're about it, search the house for a couple of anti-personnel-scan devices on belts, should be stored somewhere. Take them to Commodore Jesek and tell him I want him to find the manufacturer. As soon as you call the all-clear, we decamp."
"Now, that is illegal," Elli remarked.
"What are they going to do, go to the police and complain? I think not. Ah—you want to leave any messages on the comconsole, Captain?"
"No," said Galeni softly after a moment. "No messages."
"Right."
A Dendarii rendered first aid to Miles's broken finger and numbed his hand. The sergeant was back down in less than half an hour, anti-scan belts hung over his shoulder, and flipped a data disc at Miles. "You got it, sir."
"Thank you."
Galen had not yet returned. All things considered, Miles counted that as a plus.
Miles knelt by the still-conscious Komarran, and held a stunner to his temple.
"What are you going to do?" croaked the man.
Miles's lips peeled back in a grin, cracking to bleed. "Why—stun you, of course, fly you out over the south coast, and drop you in. What else? Nighty-night." The stunner buzzed, and the struggling Komarran jerked and slumped. The Dendarii soldier retrieved his restraints, and Miles left the two Komarrans lying side by side on the garage floor. They let themselves out and keyed the garage doors closed carefully.
"Back to the embassy, then, and nail the little bastard," said Elli Quinn grimly, calling up the route to their destination from her rented car's console. The rest of the patrol withdrew to covert observation positions.
Miles and Galeni settled back. Galeni looked as exhausted as Miles felt.
"Bastard?" sighed Miles. "No. That's the one thing he is not, I'm afraid."
"Nail him first," Galeni murmured. "Define him later."
"Agreed," said Miles.
"How shall we go in?" asked Galeni as they approached the embassy in the late-morning light.
"Only one way," said Miles. "Through the front door. Marching. Pull up at the front, Elli."
Miles and Galeni looked at each other and snickered. Miles's beard was well behind Galeni's in development—Galeni's after all had a four-day head start—but his split lips, bruises, and the dried blood on his shirt made up for it, Miles figured, in augmenting his general air of seedy degradation. Besides, Galeni had found his boots and uniform jacket back at the Komarrans' house, and Miles had not. Carried off by the clone, perhaps. Miles was not sure which of them smelled worse—Galeni had been incarcerated longer, but Miles fancied he'd sweated harder—and he wasn't going to ask Elli Quinn to sniff and rate them. From Galeni's twitching lips and crinkling eyes Miles thought he might be undergoing the same delayed reaction of lunatic relief that was presently bubbling up through his own chest. They were alive, and it was a miracle and a wonderment.
They matched steps, going up the ramp. Elli sauntered behind, watching the performance with interest.
The guard at the entrance saluted by reflex even as astonishment spread over his face. "Captain Galeni! You're back! And, er. . ."he glanced at Miles, opened and closed his mouth, "you. Sir."
Galeni returned the salute blandly. "Call Lieutenant Vorpatril up here for me, will you? Vorpatril only."
"Yes, sir." The embassy guard spoke into his wrist comm, not taking his eyes off them; he kept looking sideways at Miles with a very puzzled expression. "Er—glad to have you back, Captain."
"Glad to be back, Corporal."
In a moment, Ivan popped out of a lift tube and came running across the marble-paved foyer.
"My God, sir, where have you been?" he cried, grabbing Galeni by the shoulders. He remembered himself belatedly, and saluted.
"My absence wasn't voluntary, I assure you." Galeni tugged on one earlobe, blinking, and ran the hand through his beard stubble, clearly a little touched by Ivan's enthusiasm. "As I shall explain in detail, later. Right now—Lieutenant Vorkosigan? It is perhaps time to surprise your, er, other relative."
Ivan glanced at Miles. "They let you out, then?" He looked more closely, then stared "Miles …"
Miles bared his teeth, and moved them out of earshot of the mesmerized corporal. "All shall be revealed when we arrest the other me. Where am I, by the way?"
Ivan's lips wrinkled in dawning dismay. "Miles . . . are you trying to diddle my head? It's not very funny. …"
"No diddle. And not funny. The individual you've been rooming with for the last four days—wasn't me. I've been rooming with Captain Galeni, here. A Komarran revolutionary group tried to plant a ringer on you, Ivan. The sucker is my clone, for real. Don't tell me you never noticed anything!"
"Well …" said Ivan. Belief, and growing embarrassment, began to suffuse his features. "You did seem sort of, um, off your feed, the last couple of days."
Elli nodded thoughtfully, highly sympathetic to Ivan's embarrassment.
"In what way?" asked Miles.
"Well. . . I've seen you manic. And I've seen you depressive. But I've never seen you—well—neutral."
"I had to ask. And yet you never suspected anything? He was that good?"
"Oh, I wondered about it the very first night!"
"And what?" yelped Miles. He felt like tearing his hair.
"And I decided it couldn't be. After all, you'd made that clone story up yourself a few days ago."
"I shall now demonstrate my amazing prescience. Where is he?"
"Well, that's why I was so surprised to see you, you see."
Galeni was now standing with his arms crossed, and his hand to his forehead, supportingly; Miles could not read his lips, though they were moving slightly—counting to ten, perhaps. "Why, Ivan?" said Galeni, and waited.
"My God, he hasn't left for Barrayar already, has he?" said Miles urgently. "We've got to stop him—"
"No, no," said Ivan. "It was the locals. That's why we're all in such a flap, here."
"Where is he?" snarled Miles, going for a grip on Ivan's green uniform jacket with his good hand.
"Calm down, that's what I'm trying to tell you!" Ivan glanced down at Miles's white-knuckled fist. "Yeah, it's you all right, isn't it? The local police came through here a couple of hours ago and arrested you—him—whatever. Well, not arrested, exactly, but they had a detention order, forbidding you to leave this legal jurisdiction. You—he—was frantic, 'cause it meant you'd miss your ship. You were shipping out tonight. They subpoenaed you for questioning, before the municipal bench's investigator, to ascertain if there was enough evidence to file formal charges."